Uni team are runners-up in national business challenge

A team of University of Bedfordshire MBA students took second place in the final of national Flux 500, the largest student business challenge in the UK.

The team of six managed to fend off competition from 14 universities to secure second place, just behind Manchester Metropolitan. The challenge is set by the competition’s sponsors who this year included IBM, BAE Systems and Deloitte.

The Team Flux 2016 students who were over the moon with their success said: “From winning the stream to coming second in the national level competition, the Flux experience has broadened our knowledge and understanding of business practice, which in turn will improve our employability.

“We would like to thank the University of Bedfordshire for this wonderful opportunity which helped us to apply our MBA theories into practice.”

The winning team also thanked their mentors Student Employability Advisor Paul Harrison and former Students’ Union Vice President Angelo Karvelas, now Policy & Public Affairs Assistant at the university, for all their support.

During the competition, the students have access to business advisors from the sponsor companies to help them develop their ideas and execute their strategies before presenting and defending their final solution.

The Careers and Employability Service ran a challenging internal competition before Christmas to simulate the final, and identify which team of six would best represent the university.

Paul Harrison said: “Flux is a highly demanding national enterprise competition with elements of Dragon’s Den and The Apprentice involved, but it is essentially about teamwork.

“The result in the national final shows we found an excellent team. They already had tons of drive and creativity, and with some additional coaching from our staff in how Flux operates, they fulfilled their potential on the national stage, defeating a host of prestigious universities in the process.”